


you've got the sort of face (but your eyes are warning me)

by ephemeraltea (temporarily_obsessed)



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Angst War 2014, Asexual Character, Gen, M/M, Unrequited Love, in which sex pollen is not a sexy thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-26
Updated: 2014-03-26
Packaged: 2018-01-17 02:47:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1371136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/temporarily_obsessed/pseuds/ephemeraltea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the angst war on tumblr. Prompt: (from rahndom) Also: Damian never understood the fascination his father and grandfather had with Drake. Until he tasted the forbidden fruit himself</p>
            </blockquote>





	you've got the sort of face (but your eyes are warning me)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rahn (Rahndom)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rahndom/gifts).



> First time writing DamiTim, so I beg your indulgence. It was harder than I anticipated.

It starts, for Damian, because of the stupidest, most awful thing. He gets hit with pollen- _damnable arousal pollen_ \- which Poison Ivy seems to deem an acceptable gift for his seventeenth birthday. Damian doesn’t have any drive to tell her she was a few months late in delivery.

Drake is the one to answer his emergency broadcast, of course. By the time Red Robin gets him back to the cave, he’s sweating and his thoughts are chaotic and _needy_ in a way that makes Damian, somewhere in the back of his mind where he’s still coherent, snarl in horror. Red Robin has been silent the whole drive, but Damian has felt him glance at him periodically. This pleases him more and more as the drug takes over his reason.

He doesn’t recall much from that point on particularly clearly. It’s all jumbled and hazy, though a few things stick out- Tim pulling his cowl back and shining a penlight into his eyes, the cast of cave lights on his hair beautiful to Damian. The ache of want sharp throughout every cell in his body. And-

“I have wanted you for a long time, Timothy, please-“

“I think you’ll say otherwise tomorrow, Damian.”

-and Drake’s cool refusal burns at the time like physical pain. (Though in the morning, as predicted, Damian is very grateful for it.) The damp of a desperate kiss on his mouth and chin, and the pressure of Drake’s clinical hands on his shoulders pushing him away and restraining him.

In the morning, when he’s “clean” again, it’s not Drake who’s watching over him- it’s Richard, who grins when Damian blinks and asks what the hell happened. It’s his original mentor who talks to him about how he shouldn’t be embarrassed about what happened the night before, it’s happened to all of them, and anyway Tim said that he behaved better than expected.

“Of course I am unashamed,” Damian replied, as if the very idea is an affront, and it is- but mostly because he _is_ mortified. He does understand that the actions were not of his own making, and that he cannot be truly held accountable for them, and no one was hurt besides… but here is more irrefutable evidence that Damian is not, actually, as _superior_ as he was led to believe in his childhood. And he really did say appalling things. Like that he _wanted Drake carnally._

Which of course he does not. Besides the fact that he dislikes Drake on principal, Damian has been working under the theory that he’s mostly, if not entirely, asexual. Sex, thus far, has seemed inspiringly unappealing, and the encounter with Ivy hardly rectified that, once the _damnable pollen_ wore off. Still. Something from the experience makes him wish to reevaluate his father’s seeming favorite.

So he watches. He considers. He researches. He makes charts, and still finds the process dull. Perhaps in that alone he should find something to admire Drake- that he can produce so many charts and graphs so quickly and efficiently. And somewhere during this process, he begins to think of Drake as “Timothy.”

It’s around the time that he realizes that Timothy is, in fact, a rather commendable person as well as vigilante that he also realizes he has been _thinking_ of him by his first name, rather than surname, and that he thinks it with _admiration_. It takes him two days to decide that, yes, in fact, he admires Timothy, much in way Richard and Brown like to refer to as a “crush.”

This is, of course, completely unacceptable. Damian went through the faze where he flushed and blinked more around certain intelligent, attractive people, but he was certain he was done with that unforgivable portion of his early teen years. However, ignoring the condition has never done him any good in the past, and his current reactions indicate no new advantage in that arena.

Instead, he resolves to befriend his longtime-nemesis as best he can until the infatuation fades, and then he will be one ally better than he was before.

(He ignores the thought that tells him this won’t be nearly so neat as he imagines. It sounds too much like Todd to bear listening to.)

* * *

“Damian,” Timothy says, frowning slightly. It’s not an unattractive face, for the most part. The crease between his eyebrows could even be considered precious.

“Timothy,” he replies, raising one of his own eyebrows. His plan has been halfway successful; he and Timothy are on much improved terms now, several months into enacting it, but his unfortunate appreciation for Timothy remains. Damian maintains hope that it might still leave him, but that hope is fading as the feeling begins to gain a sense of… permanence.

“Do you-“ He stops again, and his frown deepens. Damian waits. “Nevermind. It can wait.”

* * *

It takes only another three weeks after that before Damian admits defeat and realizes that he may never lose his particular affection for Timothy.

(This does not mean sex sounds any more appealing to him. It means that Damian loves him, that simply.)

Damian still has no intention of ever letting the other know. It is… embarrassing, for one, but also unfair, he thinks for the both of them. It is better to let things lie.

* * *

“Damian, are you in love with me?” Timothy blurts one night, when it’s only the two of them in the Cave. Damian freezes for only a second before turning to lie to Timothy.

The man he has fallen for looks younger than he is, in that moment. His eyes look bluer than Damian recalls them being, and the faint glow of the computer across his face causes an ethereal effect. And Damian… finds he cannot lie. Doesn’t wish to.

_If I were stronger, I would say no,_ he realizes. And it is just another mark, another piece of evidence, proving he is not truly superior at all. He is just a boy, in love, with no chance. He knows that, even as the sadness in Timothy’s eyes becomes apparent when Damian opens his mouth to quietly say-

“Yes.”


End file.
